


The History Books Forgot About Us

by untune_the_sky



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, At Some Distant Point In The Future, Bucky Barnes Gives The Shovel Talk, Clint Barton Gets The Shovel Talk, F/M, Gen, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Red Room Past(s), Various Canons Smushed Together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-31
Updated: 2016-01-31
Packaged: 2018-05-17 07:52:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5860462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/untune_the_sky/pseuds/untune_the_sky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You can’t quantify love. It doesn’t get better as it ages, not like a fine wine. Bucky knows that. You love and it lasts, or you love and it doesn’t. It’s rarely glamorous. It’s rarely beautiful, unless you consider shattering earthquakes and exploding supernovas beautiful. He supposes some people might. But Bucky doesn’t.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The History Books Forgot About Us

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Zip and AJ for giving this a once-over for me. All remaining mistakes are mine (unless they're formatting, in which case I'm blaming gdocs and A03 being weirdly incompatible sometimes). This fic is entirely the fault of multiple authors throughout the MCU fandom for writing the line "I loved you first" into their (gorgeous) fics (seriously, I've read it in like five of them and it killed me every time), consequently getting Regina Spektor's "[Samson](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p62rfWxs6a8)" stuck in my head for _days_. Also, that song is lovely, you should check it out!

A post-mission haze has settled over the entirety of Barton’s Bed-Stuy apartment. Bucky’s not sure he cares one way or the other. He’s in a weird mood. He’s been in a weird mood ever since they got here. Natasha had leaned over to give Barton a kiss, and then disappeared into the main bedroom — familiar. He knew, intuitively, that she’d be familiar with this place. She lives here most of the time, after all. She lives with _Barton_.

It’s not a difficult concept to wrap his head around.

And yet.

The blinds are half-open, light streaking through in bars where the slats don’t quite meet. Bucky can see motes of dust floating through them. Steve’s in the guest room, passed out face-down on the bed. No matter how graceful he can be when he’s in the suit, when he’s got the shield and he’s flinging it around with perfect precision... peel him out of the first, put the second one on the floor, and he’s a mound of useless muscle. Not every time. But definitely this time.

So Bucky’s on the couch next to Barton. They’re unsupervised. He doesn’t know if this was an oversight on someone’s part, or if Steve was just too tired to care that he was leaving the two formerly brainwashed sharpshooters alone together. Either way, whatever the reason or lack thereof, Bucky’s on the couch next to Barton — both of them in t-shirts and boxers — and he’s got a couple things he needs to say to the man.

Reaching over to the bowl of dry cereal between them, he takes a handful and cradles it against his chest. He pops a couple flakes into his mouth, chews them, watches something on _Dog Cops_ explode, and then says, “So.”

Barton’s hand freezes for a fraction of a second over the cereal bowl. If Bucky wasn’t so acutely aware of the younger man, he probably wouldn’t have noticed.

“So,” Barton replies, wary even as he belatedly scoops up a handful of cereal for himself.

“You and Natasha.”

“Yeah?”

“Been a while.”

“Yeah.”

Bucky doesn’t say anything for a moment, munching on another few flakes. He doesn’t get this new, almost powdery stuff. He wouldn’t eat it, if he really had a choice, but the fruity _Gushers_ in the cupboard are completely off-limits. They’re apparently Natasha’s favorite thing, and Barton was really pointed about how no one else was allowed to touch them. There’s nothing in the refrigerator but milk a week past its expiration date and orange juice that Bucky’s pretty sure has gained sentience.

“You hurt her,” he says, “And I’ll kill you.”

“Like you’d even have a chance.”

Bucky thinks that over, then nods consideringly. “I’ll kill whatever’s left of you when she’s finished.”

Barton doesn’t reply immediately. There’s some actually interesting dialogue going on in the show, so Bucky assumes he’s waiting for it to finish before he says anything.

Once the dialogue’s over, Barton says, “This like a near-death experience kinda conversation?”

“Sure, if you wanna look at it that way,” Bucky says, watching a speck of dust float toward him.

“But it’s not, really.”

“Not really.”

“So how’re you looking at this?”

That’s one thing he’ll give Barton. The guy’s not highbrow, he doesn’t pretend to have all the answers, and he’s not flashy unless he’s got his bow in hand. But he’s not stupid. He’s got a good head on his shoulders. Bucky can see some of the things Natasha must see in him.

Obviously not all of them.

“You never got the shovel talk before?”

“Plenty of times,” Barton says. He shrugs. “Never from the world’s best assassin, though.”

“I don’t do that anymore.”

“Doesn’t change that you did.”

“Steve’d tell you that wasn’t me.”

“Eh,” Barton says, shrugging. “Might not’ve been you in the driver’s seat, probably not something you’d’ve chosen to do yourself. But it was your skills. And you’ve still got ’em.”

Bucky nods. “True.”

“So. World’s best assassin. Giving me the shovel talk,” Clint says.

“Right. So. You hurt her, I’ll make sure you’re dead. All the way dead.”

“That’s fair,” Barton says.

“Glad to see we understand each other,” Bucky says, dumping the rest of the cereal in his hand into his mouth.

“You’re like eight years behind, though,” Barton points out.

“Eight years ago, I was in cryostasis in Minsk,” Bucky says, finally looking back toward Barton. “I got to it as soon as I could.”

“Hm...” Barton hums softly, then finishes off his own handful of cereal. “Also fair.”

Steve stumbles out of the spare bedroom, pulling a plain t-shirt over his head as he shuffles toward the kitchen. Bucky snags his wrist before he makes it past the couch, and picks up the bowl of cereal to hand it to him. “Barton’s kitchen’s like a barren wasteland,” he says. “Eat this. Chinese is on the way.”

Grunting, Steve holds the bowl like it’s full of something precious, and walks back into the bedroom. He’ll realize that’s not where he wants to be in about ninety seconds, so Bucky knows he’s got a limited amount of time if they’re gonna try and add anything else to this talk.

“My kitchen’s only a barren wasteland because I won’t let you eat Tasha’s stash,” Barton points out.

“Yeah, and that’s a goddamn shame. Those _Gushers_ would be delicious.”

“No fucking clue why you two love those things,” Barton mutters, nose wrinkling.

“Former _Soviet_ assassins. What you consider a nostalgic childhood trauma is gourmet dining to us,” Bucky says.

“Jesus, you’re making all these valid statements,” Barton says, obviously amused.

“That’s something they taught me in assassin school,” Bucky deadpans.

There’s a commercial on for some hair-care product that someone would undoubtedly joke about Bucky needing. When Barton draws in another breath, he assumes that’s what the archer’s going to do. Instead, what Barton drops into the silence between one commercial’s jingle and the next is, “I love her.”

Bucky’s pupils blow wide for a moment and he sees a young woman, exceptionally skilled with firearms and garrotes, being sent on a mission as nothing more than arm candy. Deadly sweet arm candy. He knows, thanks to files, that he trained her. He knows she retains fragments of those memories that he’ll never get back. His first real memories of her are from that honeypot mission. He had to watch her go in by herself. He had to let her do her job. It was a test.

And Bucky remembers picking her up afterward. She passed the test. There was never really any question as to whether or not she would. But she did, so he picked her up. It was the first of many. She was the lure. Sometimes, she was also the snare and the knife. Sometimes he was the bullet or the fist. Sometimes there were so many targets that they were both all of those things.

He remembers missions where they posed as caring spouses. He remembers missions where they didn’t have to pretend. He remembers that pretending was safer. He remembers that the consequences for not pretending were dire. He remembers watching her watch him as they put him in the chair. It was a crude thing, then. Crude and violent. He doesn’t remember her, after that.

It’s a miracle he remembers her at all.

Beyond that, he has fragments of what might once have been memories. There is _one_ fragment that is far older than all the others, more worn around the edges, and there is nothing of Natasha in it. The woods were quiet, so _they_ had to be quiet. The men, scattered throughout the small camp in their tents, slept soundly. Bucky remembers furtive movements, always keeping one ear out in case — just in case. But ‘in case’ never came, and the night stretched long around them.

When the Red Room had him, this memory kept Bucky sane.

For the longest time, he believed beyond even the smallest shadow of a doubt that he made this up, created a fantasy to pull him through training and punishment, through conditioning and reconditioning.

Everything was cold.

The fire was low.

They were half-hidden in the shadows.

A kiss.

The press of shaking fingertips.

Bucky whispered, breath frosting through the air, “But you love her.”

And the blond man in front of him nudged their foreheads together, pushed closer to Bucky’s chest as he whispered back, “I loved you first.”

You can’t quantify love. It doesn’t get better as it ages, not like a fine wine. Bucky knows that. You love and it lasts, or you love and it doesn’t. It’s rarely glamorous. It’s rarely beautiful, unless you consider shattering earthquakes and exploding supernovas beautiful. He supposes some people might. But Bucky doesn’t.

Bucky thinks the man he can hear moving in the guest bedroom of Barton’s Bed-Stuy apartment is beautiful. He thinks Steve is a goddamn miracle, and he thanks any deity who might listen to him — who might’ve ever listened to him pray — that for some unknown reason, Steve looks back at him with the same mildly bewildered wonder that he knows lights his own eyes when he’s not careful. He doesn’t get that, doesn’t understand how he got so lucky, but he did. 

And he’s had more luck in his life than most. He had one great love, a love that’s transcended lifetimes. He had another, not lesser, but that’s not the one he had a hope of reviving. It wasn’t the time in between then and now that made him reconcile with that fact. He might have pursued her through the decades, just as he’d pursued Steve.

But she’d moved on.

He’d had no choice but to let her go.

Eyes locked with Barton’s, Bucky exhales slowly. “I loved her first.”


End file.
